


Heterotrophy

by soda_coded



Category: Control (Video Game)
Genre: Co-workers, Developing Friendships, Gen, In-Jokes, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-19 17:54:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22068736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soda_coded/pseuds/soda_coded
Summary: Emily is a professional. Her colleagues, less so.
Comments: 15
Kudos: 65





	Heterotrophy

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this as a joke to cheer up my wife.

Emily wasn’t sure what she’d expected when she saw faint smoke coming out from under the door of the main research lab. There were no alarms to indicate a fire, and while everything smelled truly awful, it did not have the chemical smell of melting equipment. No one was screaming. Bureau policy had her send in a mandatory alert to security, but there could be someone in there, unconscious from the smoke.

Her newest, untyped notes were still in there.

Emily touched the door handle with one finger, but it wasn’t hot, so she grasped it, and turned it, letting the door swing open on it’s own weight. Backdrafts were a real phenomenon.

Instead, there was just more smoke, and someone,  _ Darling _ saying weakly, “ _ Shit _ .”

“Doctor?” Emily called into the dark. The hiss had made all of them more cautious, but for a moment nothing happened. Then, rustling. Footsteps. Emily took a step back, poised to run, and then Darling stepped within view of the light coming through the open door. He appeared fine, but appearances at the Bureau could be deceiving. Emily hadn’t lasted weeks under lock down just to get killed for trusting her boss.

Especially when she barely trusted him un-Altered.

“It’s just you, right?” He asked, peering out into the empty hall and Emily nodded, even though security was already on the way. “Jesus, that was terrifying-”

Laughter from the dark beyond him, and  _ that _ should be scary, but Emily knew that laugh. Her frown deepened as she peered further in and spotted Jesse’s booted feet propped inelegantly on a desk, bent at the knee, crossed at the ankle. Darling waved her in, and Emily entered somewhat reluctantly. She jumped when Darling shut the door behind her, kicking what looked like a spare lab coat back under the edge, clumsily sealing the room once more.

“Hey, Emily.” Jesse said, and honestly? She sounded super high. Emily pulled out her radio, debated the merits of cancelling the security call. Finally does it anyway, enjoying the way Jesse’s eyebrows shoot up, and Darling sputters behind her, vibrating with manic tension. He waited until the moment her thumbs lifted from the transmitter before pointing at her, face red, which looked ridiculous seeing as they were maybe three feet apart. “You called security on me, and  _ lied _ about it?”

“Standard Bureau protocol.” Emily said, already done with whatever nonsense this was. Less general nonsense and mayhem was one of her favorite benefits to her promotion to Head of Communications. Less nonsense, and all of the classified info a girl could ever dream of. Darling was still staring at her. “ _ What _ ?”

“You’re just. A narc!” Darling finally managed and Jesse burst into giggles. She looked more relaxed than Emily had ever seen her, her hair pulled back into a messy bun, making her look about five years younger. 

“Narc?” She said mockingly to Darling, who was busy gesturing for Emily to surrender her radio. Emily ignored him, a practice oft exercised around Darling. “Your age is showing. And you’re fired.”

“Pfft.” Darling said, and gave up when Emily refused to engage with his antics, like a toddler. He threw himself into a chair across from where Jesse sat, clearly working towards a tatrum. The overhead lights were off, but they’d left a small reading lamp glowing on the desk, turning everything dim and hazy. “You wish. Try again.”

“You’re fired!” Jesse said, and they both cracked up. 

Jesse raised a small, rolled cigarette up to her lips, and inhaled. Explained the smoke, at least, except that Jesse didn’t smoke, and Darling had a damn near neurological distaste for it. Emily waited for the cloud out, but Jesse was… holding it in?

Lips pursed, head back while Darling made the same grabby gestures at her slack hand for the cigarette, that he’d made for Emily’s comm. Finally exhaled, puffing it out in wobbly rings of blue grey smoke.

"Is that… weed?" Emily asked, disbelievingly. 

"Nah." Jesse said, sounding if possible, more doped up. "It's the mold."

Emily's hand flew to her belt, and Darling squeaked fumbling their pass. Jesse cracked an eye at her.

"Relax, Emily." She said. "Raya said it was the good shit."

Darling laughed again, only visible in his shadowed corner by the cherry glow of his joint.

"It's safe." He said on an exhale, meaning his words drifted toward her on a cloud. "Raya had a lab accident a week ago, and discovered some of her neutralized samples had unusual properties. Apparently the chemical composition is remarkably similar to-"

"Ugh." Jesse said not moving. "You guys are so smart."

"So are you." Emily replied automatically at the same time Darling said, "Thank you."

Jesse sat up, and held out her hand imperiously and Darling puffed out his cheeks, sucking in a last hit before handing it off. She caught Emily's look as she raised it to her lips.

"It's for science." She said, and Emily frowned when Jesse tossed her a wink. Inhaled hard, and then ashed it directly into the desk, which was somehow worse than the floor, although Emily didn't know why.

"How did I not know about this?" Emily asked. Her entire job was to know everything.

"Raya posted it in the group chat." Jesse said. "Are you not in the group chat?"

"You have a group chat?" Emily said, and this should not hurt her feelings, this was a job not a- not a social club. "When did you get a group chat?"

"It's for pyramids, not squares." Darling said haughtily and Emily pulled a face at him without thinking. Too many years working in close quarters with Darling was like, well, smoking the mold.

"Darling made it." Jesse said. "I'll send you an invite later."

"Pfft. Isn't all of communications just your group chat?" Darling asked, and he was holding out his hand, waiting for the pass, but the only thing left delicately delicately pinched between Jesse's fingers was a stained twist of paper. 

"No, it's daycare.” Emily snapped, and Darling blinked at her, pupils huge through his coke-bottle lenses.

"Don't harsh my mellow." He said, and then they were off again, cracking up at their own stupid joke, which wasn't  _ even _ a joke, which wasn't even  _ funny _ and if this was what the group chat was like, maybe Emily didn't want an invite.

Goddamnit, yes, she did.

"Another?" Jesse asked him and Darling stroked his beard, pretending to consider.

"For science?" He asked, eyes already crinkling, and Jesse nodded in response.

"For science." She said, and pulled a flat dissecting tray toward herself, covered in browning mold chunks, and scraps of paper. "Sit down Emily, you're freaking me out."

"Our  _ mellow _ ." Darling agreed, and she shouldn't but…

Emily had never been cool- once a square, always a square, she supposed- and Jesse bled cool like a head wound. Besides, she needed in that group chat. Emily sat down.

It was quiet for a moment and Emily wondered if this was what college would have been like if she'd ever made real friends, if she'd ever been invited to a group chat. Darling was humming to himself, digging through one of his lab coat pockets and Emily watched his foot jiggle for a moment, before turning back to watch Jesse crumbling the dehydrated mold into something burnable. Her movements were unconscientious, assured even when pulling and tearing a scrap of paper to get it the right size, before beginning to fold and roll it. Fantastical geometry that left Emily with questions.

"When did you learn to do this?" She asked, and wondered if it was a breach of integrity to use Bureau interrogation tactics on their Director. She didn't need to, but like always, Emily wanted to know.

Jesse smiled, unbothered, her hair unkempt curls that she had to keep tucking behind her ear as it fell slowly from her hasty bun.

"This is what I was learning while you two went to college." She said. Held up a small, spiraled piece of paper, eyeing it critically. It must pass muster, as she set it back on the tray, and went back to their mold. Jesus, the fucking mold, Emily should absolutely call security.

She didn't.

"I always wanted to go." Jesse volunteered, some vulnerable quality to her voice Emily had only previously heard when she spoke of Dylan. "To college, I mean."

"There used to be a Bureau scholarship." Darling said, giving up on his pockets and rejoining the conversation. "Before Northmoor made having a degree a requirement, not a bonus."

"Northmoor did that?" Emily asked. That was so recent. She hadn't even questioned it.

"Oh, yeah." Darling said, appearing pleased to have found an audience for his decades old complaints. "Phillip 'my family is legally related to the Reagan's' Northmoor. What a prick. Before that it was all aptitude testing… Not a lot we do here is teachable, even at an Ivy League, you know."

"We should bring that back." Jesse said, and Emily looked away while she sealed the thing with a quick, pink slide of her tongue. Darling didn't, but Emily was a professional.

"It would require a lot of restructuring." Emily voiced cautiously and Darling snorted, running his hand through his hair again and again until it stood on end, in loose clumps.

"This whole place needs restructuring. Security is a bunch of blow-hard kinesiology majors who can't ever properly contain evidence and conversely, all the Rangers are ex-CIA, who are definitely still just CIA. And why is the executive sector all the way at the top? Every time the House shifts I have to walk five floors to get a decent cup of coffee." He sighed, ran his hand through his hair again while Jesse flicked her lighter, burning the twisted paper, looking amused. "Fuck. Maybe I'm just tired of interviewing engineers. Such unimaginative people for their chosen field."

"Try building a better connection with them." Jesse said. Took a puff and looked between them with bright eyes. "Get it?  _ Building _ ? Engineers?"

Darling stared at her for a long moment, hand still in his hair, before he turned abruptly to Emily.

"Okay, she's out, you're in." He said, speaking quickly. "'Build a connection', good lord-"

He interrupted himself to take the joint and hit it, blowing smoke through the overgrown fringe of his mustache. Paused and then held it out to Emily.

She'd already made up her mind when she'd sat down, but she still hesitated, for just a second.

Took it anyway, and oh god, it tasted horrible. Emily shuddered.

"Dear God, that tastes-"

"Oh, yeah, like really bad." Jesse agreed and Darling just shrugged. He'd gone back to his pocket only to pull a wrapped candy out triumphantly. What was Emily doing with her life? She'd had offers from NASA.

Emily coughed once and then tried again. It still tasted very, very bad, like burned coffee grounds and animal rot, but this time she pulled actual smoke. Tried to hold it and just ended up coughing more.

"The taste was unexpected." Darling said, so exactly how he dictated notes that Emily's fingers twitched briefly for a pen. His legs were crossed, head propped on a fist, apparently chatty while stoned. More chatty? Chattier? Was she stoned? How fast did mold work? "As was the photosensitivity. Better high though, than most of the recreational strains I've tried-"

" 'Recreational strains'" Jesse said, almost mockingly and Darling's lips pursed. Emily wondered if she should tell her how he hated to be teased- maybe Jesse already knew. "You should have seen his attempt at a joint before I showed up-"

"I am a chemist and physicist, Director, and that means I pride myself on my glassware, not my paperwork."

"Too bad." Jesse grinned. "You can't bring that here, and you can't take this home…"

"Guess I'll just get high on the government's dime." Darling said. "For science, of course."

"Of course." Jesse said, looking thoroughly charmed. "Trench did say we had no actual budget projections, so it should be fine."

"What?" Emily said, shocked and loudly enough that she didn't hear Darling's echo for a moment. Jesse cracked closed eyes to look at them.

"Oops." She said. Giggled. "Probably should have kept that one to myself."

Darling leveled her with a look so offended, Emily laughed before she meant to, the sound just bubbling out of her. It was the most serious she had seen him all day, and he was still sucking on candy.

"I want a company credit card." He said, and Emily bit her lip, tried not to laugh again, god she really did, but everything felt so good and Jesse looked so thoroughly exasperated that she was cackling before she realized. Handed off the joint so she didn't drop it, her shoulders shaking.

"I'm serious!"

"No- we're not even  _ discussing _ -"

" _ With _ my title." Darling said and Jesse was shaking her head, already gearing up to talk him down when the door cracked open making all three of them freeze.

"Dr. Darling… are you- what is that smell?" Arish asked and Darling flapped a hand at him.

"Shut the door, we're trying to hotbox!"

Arish's face contorted like a puppy smelling a sock and Emily was laughing again, couldn't fucking stop. Contagious, it must be, because Jesse was laughing too while Arish blinked at them owlishly.

"In or out!" Darling said again and Emily couldn't breathe when Arish just backed up slowly, shutting the door. Buried her laughter in the crook of her arm, shaking with it until tears pricked the corners of her eyes.

: yeet or be yeeten

BigDarlingEnergy: @underhillunderstone we're out 

Underhillunderstone: already?

Babew/the power: It was good. You deserve a raise.

Partypoper: Agreed!

Partypoper: who set my name 

BigDarlingEnergy: :logged off:

Underhillunderstone: already?!

  
  
  



End file.
